Please don’t let the Patroons get screwed over!

So after a season that saw its highs and its lows, the Albany Patroons are headed to the championship series against the Yakima Sun Kings.

Now here’s where it gets weird.

Games 1 and 2 will be in Yakima on Monday and Tuesday, while Game 3 – if necessary – will be back in Albany on this coming Thursday.

So all Albany has to do is either win both games in Yakima (which is possible), or split the series and win Game 3 back here in the Armory (which works fine for me as well).

But there’s a small problem.

And it involves travel.

Specifically, the league is only paying for the Patroons to send ten men – nine players and the coach to Yakima for the first two games of the finals, while if there IS a Game 3, the Sun Kings will send their entire roster to Albany.

Yeah, are we suggesting something’s a bit unbalanced here?

Considering the Patroons have played nearly their entire season with one hand tied behind their back … and were still able to reach the championship finals … I don’t think it’s fair that both teams don’t get to play the finals series with their 12 best men apiece.

One of the Patroons, 3-point specialist EJ Gallup, started a GoFundMe page to help purchase tickets for the two remaining players to help the Patroons at least compete with a full roster on the road.

I’ll let EJ share his thoughts on this.

 

And before any of you tell me to practice what I preach, I donated to the cause a few minutes ago.  You give what you can when you can.

You don’t have to donate much – at the time I wrote this blog Friday night, the GoFundMe page had reached nearly a third of its stated goal.  A few dollars here won’t hurt.

The TBL has a lot of issues that must be addressed.  Without question.  But the biggest one is that there should be no reason why a championship series should have their first two games played with an uneven playing roster.

Let’s make this work.

The GoFundMe link is right here.

The Patroons have given us a great season.

Now let’s help them give a full-strength roster to the finals.

Yes?